=Monkwell Street=, anciently written Mugwell, Muggewell, or Mogwell Street, was so called, according to Stow, after a well in the Hermitage of St. James at the north end of the street. The Hermitage was a cell belonging to Garendon Abbey where two or three of the brethren resided as chaplains. There is no doubt about the house or the Hermitage, and very possibly there was a well within its small precinct. At the same time the ancient form of the name, Mugwell, does not suggest the word Monk. It seems probable that the name was originally Mugwell, and that after the Dissolution the memory of the well was kept up by a corruption of the name. The street appears to have been outside the industries of North London. It is mentioned many times in the _Calendar of Wills_, but never in connection with workshops or trading shops. Between 1277 and 1576 there are the entries of the street. They all speak of rents, tenements, and houses. In the year 1349 we find a brewery in the street. This naturally inclines us to think that there must have been a well—? Mugwell—to supply the brewery. In Riley’s _Memorials_ it is mentioned once only in connection with a tourelle of London Wall near the street. The Hermitage was succeeded by Lamb’s Chapel. THE BARBERS This Fraternity should also be of extreme antiquity. When or why the barbers took upon themselves the practice of surgery I do not know. It was the custom of the Roman Catholic Church to allow ecclesiastics to become physicians on the condition (Council of Tours, 1163) that they abstained from fire and steel; Rabelais, for instance, in the fifteenth century, practised medicine subject to this condition. But some kinds of surgery are necessary: bone-setting, for instance, which was understood and performed by the common people; dentistry, which at first fell into the hands of barbers but afterwards became a separate mystery practised by itinerants; cupping, blood-letting, the dressing of wounds, and amputations also fell into the hands of the barbers. But not of all the barbers. Surgery advanced by degrees; it became a distinct profession before it was recognised.